Everything Burns
by geanna
Summary: Things had been strange before, but never quite like this. JokerxHarley Nolanverse beginnings


It starts with an ordinary girl.

To the world's untrained eye, she's just another pretty face and really, isn't that just the saddest, most boring thing you've ever heard? Because who gives a flying rat's ass (_a-hoo, hee-hee.._.) about a girl like that? Nobody.

On the other hand, his big, black eye sees a lot more than most, because, really, you can just marvel at how he's improved that pathetic excuse of a person and turned her into something _interesting_, something of value in a world as cheap as the next trick up. He applauds himself time and again – since no one else seems to want to – and gives himself the old proverbial pat on the back for being such a courteous gentleman to do a favor like that for nothing. Well, maybe not _entirely_ for nothing. To be fair, between all that Clozapine and Torazine and whatever other mystery pill they pushed onto his tongue to swallow, it was all pretty amusing.

Considering the unexpected twist things had taken, he has to stop sometimes and wonder that if he were ever the type of man to plan things to go a certain _way, _would he ever have thought of this? No, no he doesn't think so. Needless to say however, cutting her up into little pieces wouldn't have made him laugh as hard (and let's face it, cutting people up is _very_ funny in his professional opinion).

Frankly, though, from the very get-go there was something off about that dame with the tight, black skirts and the bright, blonde hair that, topped with those cheesy pop-bottle, wide-rimmed glasses tipped down the bridge of her nose, made him want to break her in half and find out what the prize was hiding inside.

Curiosity killed the cat.

He's always liked that expression.

* * *

The very first time she ever walked by his itty-bitty, cramped cell, he managed to capture those dazzling baby-blues and to this day, his fidgety, inconsistent mind annoyingly challenges itself to draw back to the question of why she never cringed.

They always cringe.

_Every. Last. One_ of them.

(Except the _ba_t-man.)

He had his body pressed up tight against the thick, metal door set between them, his breath steadily fogging up the viewing slot as she passed by while his mind spurt a thousand and one ideas at a time. He shuffled through the chaos; words like _needles_ and _scalpels _picking themselves from the bunch and sticking to the walls of his psyche.

As she disappeared down the corridor, he dragged a chewed finger-tip across the misted window, drawing a wicked smile for the next time she might stop by.

* * *

'You, uh, dropped your _pen,_ sweetheart.'

Are the first words he says to her and he nearly doubles over with laughter at the quintessential romantic _sap _it induces that if say coupled with, oh, someone not so tangled up in his straitjacket and someone not so star-crossed to have taken a job at a nut house, might almost seem _sweet_. Of course, this ain't the movies and there isn't any romantic score crescendoing in the background as their eyes meet because he's not so much thinking about her without any clothes on as he is dragging a knife across her face instead.

She blinked at him, her face pinching in such a way that told him she's a poor poker player and excited him further.

Knees together, clipboard in hand, she bent down to scoop the pen up.

'Well, isn't that just _so_ rude,' he remarked as she began to move away from him and down the cobblestone path (they permitted him one hour outside every week, chained up to a bolted park bench like a dog tied to a fire hydrant).She had slowed to a stop and he'd pushed his tongue out over his lip before goading further, 'You didn't even tell me your _naaaaame_.'

Her shoulders tensed then sunk considerably and he could just _imagine_ the emotion, plain as day, flitting across her features before she turned back to face him, deadpan.

'I'm Doctor Quinzel.'

He clucks his tongue as she adjusted those ostentatiously sized glasses.

'See, now was that so awful? No.'

There was a wicked smirk screwing up the corner of her mouth just then and a glint in her eye as if she was thinking of something clever to say back before the realization donned on her pretty, little head that she wasn't innocently flirting with some cute guy at the bookstore. Turning to leave, this time she let on no indication of looking back.

'See you soon, sunshine!' he shouted at her as the wind seized the tails of her spotless, white coat in its grasp and granted him a peep at her revoltingly perfect backside.

* * *

When she wore the red high-heel shoes, he lunged at her with a cracked piece of tile.

She screamed when he did and he found he liked the sound so much that he sliced her blush-kissed cheek to hear it again. Her body arched to his as she thrashed around on the linoleum floor and he licked his lips in a way that he could tell frightened her even more.

Remember though how there was something odd about that girl that couldn't be put right? Remember how his big, dark eye sees a lot more than you do? Well, he suddenly began to find that being so close to that boring excuse of a person really started to change things. There was a little too much squirming that was getting her nowhere fast, and something was buried behind brilliant, blue eyes that even managed to ever-so-slightly unnerve_ him_.

Later in his cell, when he's seated on the edge of his cot, all comfy and cozy in his straitjacket and paper-thin slippers, and she's standing somewhere behind the two-way mirror, the attendant crossing his arms in front of him threatened that he'd feed him his own ass if he ever tried anything like that again. The joker amused himself on this notion for a moment before he said something witty like,

'_Have you seen those high heels, sweetie? I'm surprised I was the first one to get excited.' _

Or maybe it was

'_Well, uh, maybe someone should tell the good doctor to ab-_stain_ from wearing red. It looks too pretty on her.'_

He doesn't care to remember which it was, because it doesn't really matter.

No, the punch-line, in fact, happened to be when that very same good doctor gently patting her stitched cut with a cloth and listening from behind the glass strolled by his cell the very next morning, the same red heels click-clacking down the hallway.

* * *

Some days he wanted to strangle her.

He wanted to watch the sickly red and purple tones (his favorites, by the way) blotch her fair skin while leaving finger marks all over her throat and stops the air from reaching her lungs.

Other times, it was just as much fun to simply _talk._

Because really, it's one thing to mangle flesh, but it's a completely different more rewarding thing to fuck with a mind. And hers was deliciously appetizing.

He doesn't know how she managed to convince them to let her of all people hold sessions with him (though he could make a pretty good guess, _tisk, tisk._) but they allowed it and he cooperated, which stunned them even more. He just loves surprising people. His favorite surprise was going to be on the day he would have shoved that forever scribbling pen of hers into her chest while he choked out sobs about the time his father locked him in the pantry. Of course, planning ahead had never really been a strong trait of his, so he figured he'd think of something artistic when the time was right that would catch them off their toes one way or another.

Until that day was set to come however, he had merely talked without so much doing.

He liked how she thought she was helping him in the way that he spewed out whatever lost-and-tortured-soul garbage she wanted to hear. It's even funnier because he got this sneaking suspicion curling at the base of his spine that told him she knew what he was doing. That's what made it so appealing, that's what kept the voices hissing at the black corners of his mind quiet.

Blood could wait.

…at least for the time being.

* * *

Oh, and doesn't the plot just thicken so nicely when that boring-to-strange girl kissed the spot where the scar and mouth meet?

When she pulled away to look at him, he simply stared back; straddling the line between frustration and curiosity as he contemplated the idea that she was playing some card tucked up her sleeve. He doesn't like it when he just doesn't get the whole picture and this _Harleen_ was turning into a master Picasso that he didn't entirely trust. Not that he trusts anyone to begin with. But that's beside the point.

Her finger curled innocently around a lock of tinted, green hair that was grown out at the root. He found he didn't like this new habit he developed of _thinking _more than actually_ doing_, so in one swift movement he shoved her off of his lap and onto the floor where she smacked her back against the tiles. Before she could voice a string of moans and groans, he'd already pinned her to the floor beneath his body and was staining his lips with the scarlet shade smudged onto her own (he almost felt like himself again with an inch of makeup back in its rightful place).

He kissed her more as she slipped her hands around his neck and he patiently awaited the tip of the needle she might press into the soft flesh found there. But to his ever ever-increasing stupefaction, only the sticky grip of her tiny hands could be felt, and it's then that he _really _starts to assess how loopy his blonde doctor is.

'Oh, Mistah J,' she moaned contentedly into his skin and his arms give way beneath him so that he's collapsed on top of her with a wild, thunderous laugh at the Long Island accent that's found its way back through the cracks of the Quinzel psyche. She left a trail of wet, red kisses along the uneven flesh of his cheek as his chest clenched and the tears spilled down his mangled face. And it's through these deep, rasping breaths that he finally starts to believe it all.

He thought about finally strangling her one last time before opting for something different. As he smudged the red at the corner of her mouth up into a smile with his thumb, he started to feel a little lighter.

As if the weight of his shackles was already beginning to dissipate.

'Say, Harley-kins…'

He started to say as she licked along his jaw line with her hot, pink tongue.

'…you'd do anything for me, wouldn't you?'

* * *

He knows for a fact that lighting Arkham on fire was not her intention, but he was still laughing even as the flaming spectacle waned in the rearview mirror.

The skin stretched tight across her knuckles was white on the steering wheel and there was this annoying, little quiver taking over her plump, bottom lip that had been just promising for her tears at any given time.

'Why would you even _think_ of crying at a time like this?' he snapped as his good humor subsided. She glanced at him then sniffled; her lip still trembling in such a way that he thought he just might slice it off if it didn't quit.

'I-I'm sorry, it's just…I didn't mean to shoot that electrical wire and now all those people could burn to death.'

He should have been absolutely livid with how little she'd learned, but instead he bit on his tongue and giggled when she said this. All at once her trembling desisted and her expression turned to something of a more puzzled nature.

'Don't ya see, little _Harrrr_-lequin? That's why it's _funny_.'

He erupted into peals of laughter as she stared down the road ahead, fixed in thought. It's when he heard the quiet snickering to his left gradually turn to a maddening wave of giggles that he beat on the dash with his hands and laughed the hardest he's ever laughed before.

* * *

He's broken three of her fingers and carved a deep gash into her left arm in just three months, but that doesn't keep his girl from smiling.

Of course she tries to hit him back and sometimes, bless that fighting spirit of hers, she gets a punch or two in that draws blood. Like the man the looming figure he thinks could be his father in his head had promised he would become however, he hits her back harder and is usually left to stitch up his plaything when the cuts are too deep or she's knocked unconscious on the tacky, shag carpeted floor. She's up and about the next morning though with that good-humored smile screwing up her painted black lips that he has to admit, he's taken a liking to.

She's got some tricks, too.

One night when he's too exhausted to budge from the taped up lounge chair they've moved to the warehouse office and she's curled up in his lap like some stray feline looking for some warmth, does she tell him about her life. It's all blah, blah this, or blah, blah that so he doesn't really pay much attention. He does happen to listen when she mentions her gymnast reputation and how she slept and lied her way through med-school.

He sets a balance beam up for her in the cafeteria the next day. Knows it'll be of good use to him to have some capable help that can be taught to hold a gun properly or break someone's nose with the palm of her hand when the chance presents itself.

She's a quick learner but her emotions always seem to give her away. In the beginning, she shoots a man standing in a doorway as a security guard from across the street. The bullet goes straight through his back and out his chest and miraculously he's still breathing even with all the blood sputtering out of his mouth when they make it inside. She starts to cry right then and there, a drab swirl of black and white greasepaint running down her neck while the man clutches her booted ankle. He grabs her face in his hand, tears her eyes away from the spit-sputtering mess on the floor and makes her look at him instead.

'We only cry on the _in-_side, pumkin. Even the harlequins.' He releases her face from his grip and she stumbles backwards where her heel slips in the blood oozing from generic rent-a-cop number one and she plummets to the floor, her face landing inches from her victim's.

That night, she sits on the roof and doesn't sleep.

He doesn't hear her cry though, either.

* * *

She opens her mouth big and wide for him and he sticks the blade inside.

There are tears falling down her cheeks and a painted black smile is stretched from here to there. Her eyes tell a story he's never really been told before and he finds there is a scraping sound in his ears that he soon finds is coming from inside his head.

'_Don't you want to smile like daddy?'_ Those were the words, those were the words, those were the words SCREAMING about inside of him.

'_Yes, I'll smile for you puddin'.' _Scritch, scratch, her voice burrows through the distorted fragments of his memory. He flexes his grip on the tangled mess of blonde at her neck. _Do it, do it, do it, do it. _

Her mouth slackens and the blade draws a droplet of blood from the corner of her mouth. She winces.

'_Whether you want to believe it or not, you can't refute human nature...'_ Voices, voices, whose voice was that? Buzzing fluorescent lights, sunshine hair pulled tight behind her ears, great, big glasses tipped down her nose. _Do it, just do it._

'_No one wants to be alone. Not in a world like this.'_

He takes the knife out of her mouth and she blinks slowly at him with indifference. He throws his coat on the table and paces towards the chair by the window. She wordlessly fills his steps and until he is comfortably settled in his seat does she ease into his lap and rest her head on his chest.

Things had been strange before but never quite like this.


End file.
